MODULE 5: ALTRUISM IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
The scientific interest in Altruism dates back in 1960s.
Over the years psychologists, sociobiologists even
economist have delved into defining and measuring
this concept. Review on theory and research on
altruism by Piliavin and Charng (1990) and Feigin,
Owens and Goodyear-Smith (2014) noted that writers
from different disciplines define altruism differently.
Altruism: General definition
➢ Selfless concern for the well-being of others.
➢ A prosocial behavior - any positive human
behaviors which sustain societies, including
cooperation, charity and other forms of
helping.
➢ Introduced by Philosopher Comte (1875)
Other Definitions:
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Auguste Comte - devotion to the interests of
others as an action-guiding principle/helping in
which the costs or risks to the helper are more
obvious than any potential gains/no gain to the
helper.
Sociobiologist Wilson - self-destructive
behavior performed for the benefit of others.
Liebrand – in social dilemma, altruists are
defined as individuals who give more weight to
others than to their own.
Margolis - actor could have done better for
himself had he chosen to ignore the effects of
his choice on others.
Prosocial Behavior:
➢ a voluntary behavior that is carried out to
benefit another person.
➢ excludes beneficial actions that are not
performed voluntarily or are not performed
with the intention of helping another.
While the definition of altruism seem to lead more
on a positive note, there are differing ways on
defining the concept, especially among scholars who
seem uncomfortable to simply agree to its one-side
definition. A closer analysis on the aspect of helping
has yielded two-sides to the altruistic coin.
Two Factors of Helping:
The emphasis on studying altruism, according to Krebs
(1987), involves two factors: Intention and amount of
benefit or cost to the actor.
Two Types/Forms of Helping based on motives (by
Comte): Egoistic helping and altruistic helping.
1. Egoistic helping - where the person helps and
wants something in return (based on egoism)
because the ultimate goal of the helper is to
increase his/her own welfare.
• Pseudo-altruistic
approach/selfishly
motivated helping - there is an intentional
and voluntary act performed to benefit
another person as the primary motivation
yet with the conscious or unconscious
expectation of reward.
• Normative altruism - includes commonplace acts of helpfulness governed by
social rewards and punishments.
2. Altruistic Helping - where the person expects
nothing in return (based on altruism) because
the ultimate goal is to increase another’s
welfare.
• Altruistic approach in helping - there is a
voluntary act to help in order to benefit the
other without a conscious expectation of
reward.
• Autonomous altruism - where acts of
helpfulness is not governed by social
rewards or punishments.
Bar-Tal (1985-1986) noted that the motivational aspect
of altruism is that it:
a) must benefit another person
b) must be performed voluntarily
c) must be performed intentionally
d) the benefit must be the goal itself
e) must be performed without expecting any
extremal reward
THEORIES on WHY DO PEOPLE HELP
Various theorist has suggested on models as to why
people help. The concept of altruism includes
approaches even outside of psychology.
A. EARLY THEORIES
Evolutionary Theories - influenced theoretical and
empirical approaches to explaining human altruism.
This theory also sprang the Sociobiological approach
to altruism. The early notion of human altruism as
possessing underlying selfish motivation. This concept
of altruism is linked to Charles Darwin’s theory of
evolution of man and natural selection. The paradox of
natural selection and altruism was introduced with the
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notions of group and kin selection, inclusive fitness and
reciprocal altruism.
a. GENETIC EXPLANATIONS: Wilson employs the
principles of evolutionary theory. One principle of
sociobiology is that any social behaviors that enhance
reproductive success will continue to be passed on
from one generation to the next.
• Evolutionary theory - altruism is ultimately
selfish because it serves only to increase one’s
genetic fitness that is, reciprocal altruism is
favored in natural selection. This early
understanding of altruism was believed to have
made an impact on some early psychological
theories concerned with parental care and selfsacrifice and influenced psychological
theoretical arguments that human altruism is
ultimately selfishly motivated.
• Among the animal species, the care and
protection toward same kind against predators
is an altruistic act to ensure that the genecarrying species will thrive across its lifespan
and pass on its genes to the next. And so this
act (of protecting the specie) is learnt
eventually by its offspring and passes it on to
their future off springs. This notion also puts a
genetic explanation to altruism. However,
Wilson’s explanation of altruism as simply a
part of the species heritage has stirred a lot of
controversies because people consider
altruistic acts to be the most noble of human
actions. In spite of the controversy, he did not
totally dismiss his view. Wilson described many
human behaviors that involved risks, danger or
even death of the person who offered help. He
cited insect social behavior like the honeybee
workers were stinging an intruder will lead to
its very own death, for its sting will remain
embedded in the intruder, is a self-sacrifice act
to protect the queen and the hive. According
to him, it can also be so to individuals of this
type characteristically sacrificing themselves in
defense of their social group.
• But critics have noted that self-sacrificing
insects do not really contribute to the species
heritage as they are sterile, while members
who can reproduce are not self-sacrificing,
rather are competitive. Potential healthy
genecarriers always seek to perpetuate
themselves and not sacrifice so that others
may reproduce.
b. KIN SELECTION: The understanding of altruistic acts
are greatly expressed and shared with blood relatives
to preserve, again, one’s genes even when there are
risks is a helpful act. This principle of kin selection
states that one will exhibit preferences for helping
blood relatives because this will increase odds that
your genes will be transmitted to subsequent
generation.
• Yet, it seems logical to consider that in the Kin
Selection Process or the Survival of the Fittest
Gene, we asume that we first help our own
kind. It further notes that animals sharing high
percentage of genes by common descent will
be altruistic towards each other. The nearer the
kin, the greater will be the readiness to
sacrifice. This particular concept of altruism
assumes that being helpful to another,
especially if they are a kin/blood relative is selfsacrificing to guarantee a perpetuation of
genetic heritage and thus more likely to help
those who are related to us by blood.
• However, this arguement of altruism to protect
the gene survival does not explain the
countless incidences of stranger helping.
c. RECIPROCAL HELPING. Robert Trivers(1971) argued
that there is a kind of helping strangers that can lead to
natural selection which he termed as reciprocal
helping. This principle involves mutual helping, where
people are likely to help strangers if it us understood
that the recipient is expected to return the favor at
some time in the future.
• Trivers believe that altruistic acts expand far
beyond simply protecting genes for
reproductive purposes and helping only one’s
kins and blood relatives. While species survival
and kins are important, so are other other
species and individuals becoming good and
beneficial for one’s survival – hence a
reciprocal helping can happen. Helping a total
stranger or a friend and neighbor can also be
observed. However, according to Trivers, for
reciprocal helping to evolve, the benefit to the
recipient must be high and the cost of the
helper must be relatively low.
• Trivers also believe that reciprocal helping
exists in three (3) conditions:
a) Social group living, so that individuals have ample
opportunity to give and receive help,
b) Mutual dependence, in which species survival
depends on cooperation and
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c) The lack of rigid dominance hierarchies, so that
reciprocal helping will enhance each (animal’s) power.
The belief held by this reciprocal helping can be
concretely expressed with the quote “I do you a
favor, you do a favor back to me”; “I scratch your
back, you scratch mine” as Trivers explained in a
YouTube interview by The Dissenter (2019).
However, returning back the favor does not happen
in the same time the help was given, rather there is
a presumed timeline of returning back the favor. It
can be assumed then that when someone had
helped you, you remember that helped in your
lifetime, and when an opportunity comes for this
person (who have helped you) need help, then you
help back in one way or the other. Trivers also further
explained that when, in some case, this person who
have helped you passed away, you somehow find
other means to return the helping favor – perhaps to
his family or to others.
B. NORMATIVE THEORY OF ALTRUISM
Although prosocial behavior may have genetic basis,
social mechanisms would develop to help enforce
evolutionary adaptive helping strategies.
The prosocial norms are expectations to behave
selflessly in bestowing benefits upon others. According
to this theory, there are three basic influences on
altruism:
1. the intensity of moral (personal) obligation,
2. cognitive structure of norms and values and
3. relevance or appropriateness of feelings of moral
obligation.
To understand this theory is to take note of the set of
influences for altruism that begin as external factors
and become internalized as social norms where rules of
conduct, that is established and maintained within
societies, are used to guide the correct behavior of all
individuals.
Moral (Personal) Obligations are influenced by shared
group expectations about appropriate behavior and
social rewards, varying from individual to individual.
People help because they perceive it as the appropriate
response either due to previous experience or
observation from others. Personal norms also play and
important influential role both cognitively and
affectively. For example, people may possess
expectations of behavior based on personal standards
(cognitive) or experience emotions (affective), such as
pity or guilt when witnessing another needing help.
According to Schwartz (1973), personal norms are
based on personally held values. There is a self-based
model that specifies how a motivation to help – in the
form of a specific personal norm – is activated in a
situation. It infers that individual whose central values
are relevant to moral choices are most likely to offer
assistance to others and non-helpful people often
reduces their own feelings of moral obligation with
various psychological defenses such as denial of
responsibility (Schwartz, 1973; Schwartz and Howard,
1980).
According to Schwartz (1973), personal norms are
based on personally held values. There is a self-based
model that specifies how a motivation to help – in the
form of a specific personal norm – is activated in a
situation. It infers that individual whose central values
are relevant to moral choices are most likely to offer
assistance to others and non-helpful people often
reduces their own feelings of moral obligation with
various psychological defenses such as denial of
responsibility (Schwartz, 1973; Schwartz and Howard,
1980).
THREE SOCIAL NORMS AS GUIDELINES FOR
PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR
1. RECIPROCITY is based on maintaining fairness in
social relationships. This meant helping those who
have helped us. But it also leads to some discomfort
when people who have received help are unable or
cannot give back in return. This norm of reciprocity
includes the demands that people should help those
who have helped them and must not also injure them.
Central to this social norm is that ir encourages a
variety of prosocial behaviors and discourages
antisocial ones. It also leads to the idea that reciprocal
debts encourage cooperation on tasks that are too
large for one person to handle. The concept of
reciprocity suggested that people weigh the personal
costs and rewards associated with altruism and always
assess the possibility that they might be helped later by
those they help.
2. SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY dictates that people should
help due to a greater awareness of what is right. It
assumes that we are to help others in need and
dependent on us. Say, it is the responsibility of parents
to protect their children or teachers have the obligation
(responsibility) to mentor students or that police
enforcers have the social responsibility to implement
peace and order in the community. This social
responsibility norm requires help-givers or have
otherregarding sentiments to render assistance
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regardless of who the recipient is without an
expectation of being rewarded.
3. SOCIAL JUSTICE aligns to the “just world hypothesis”
proposed by Michael Lerner (1980) that indicates a
shared belief that the world is fair and people get what
they deserve and vice versa. The principle behind this
is that we help those who have helped us and not those
who have denied us help. In other words, it stipulates
that people should help only when they believe others
deserves their assistance. Underlying the social justice
norm can elicit either sympathy or condemnation of
help-seekers. It can cause people to help those who are
perceived to have been unjustly harmed, but it can also
cause people to judge victims as “deserving” their
suffering.
C. SOCIAL LEARNING PERSPECTIVE OF ALTRUISM
The social learning perspective argues that our moral
responses to help others are acquired through laws of
learning. Internalisation of values as facilitated by
observational learning. Parental models seen as the
strongest and most prolonged influences on the
internalisation process.
MODELING AND REINFORCEMENT
One of the major psychological approach to altruism is
based on the idea that we learn altruistic behavior in
some ways as behaviors by modeling the desired
behaviors and reinforcing them when they occur.
When understanding altruism in this perspective, it
leads us to believe that When people behave
altruistically, they are seen as models (being publicized)
and are offered a variety of benefits (rewards –
reinforcement). Both social reinforcement and
modeling increases the altruistic behavior.
Example: Angel Locsin is often publicized for her
philanthropic activities such as raising funds to provide
donations for fellow Filipinos who were victims of
calamities and the most recent was raising funds in
order to donate personal protective equipment and
make-shift sleeping and rest facilities for front liners
due to the rise of positive Covid19 patients in Metro
Manila.
Angel Locsin now being the altruistic model (modelling)
and being publicized for her helping activities (can be a
form of reinforcement). We might also assume that this
particular altruistic act of Angel Locsin might have been
learnt from her childhood (from family members as
models) and being praised for sharing help when was a
child (as reinforcement)
One drawback, however of the social learning
perspective of altruism, can undermine altruistic
motives under some circumstances. If a reward is
expected in advance, the help-giver may be perceived
as motivated by the reward (egoistic altruism) rather
than their own altruistic motives (altruistic helping) and
may be thought of us someone who will only help when
external rewards are at hand.
WHEN DO PEOPLE HELP
The decision to engaging in altruistic acts can be
complex. Social psychologist have not only investigated
how people develop the helping or prosocial behavior
but also the time in which individuals actually engages
in such behavior.
D. SITUATIONAL PERSPECTIVES OF ALTRUISM
1. BYSTANDER INTERVENTION MODEL also
known as Decision Model of Bystander Intervention
proposes that the decision to help others depend on
five (5) factors: a) Noticing something unusual and
identifying a negative change in someone’s
(victim/helped) circumstances. b) Involving a decisionmaking process and recognizing that help is needed. c)
Determining the extent to which they have the
personal responsibility (or not) to help the other. d)
Making a decision on what kind of help is to be offered.
When one assumes the responsibility to help, one
makes appropriate form of assistance to render. e)
Making the final decision to give help. This happens
especially when the unusual circumstances are
interpreted as an emergency, assumes responsibility
and is able to decide the best way to provide the help
and eventually implements the course of prosocial
action.
This five-factor Bystander Intervention Model,
proposed by Bibb Latané and John Darley (1969, 1970)
empowers bystander action or may lead to bystander
apathy (inaction). Bystander intervention is a form of
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prosocial behavior that occurs when onlookers act to
provide direct aid or protection to victims, defend
victims, confront or distract aggresors, alert authorities
or call police or emergency medical professinals on
behalf of others (Burn, 2017). Bystanders may
intervene alone or with a group of people to mitigate
harm to victims and the act can be herois and lifesaving.
2. AUDIENCE INHIBITION EFFECT - that can be
a concommitant action to the bystander effect
denoting that on factor 1 of the bystander intervention,
an ambiguity of the circumstances is occuring. It meant
that when others are present, people not only are less
likely to define a potentially dangerous situation as an
emergency but that they also respond more slowly to
the possible emergency. This audience inihibition effect
is likely to occur when other people are acting calmly
or dismissive of the situation.
The inhibition effect was seen as a resultant of how
people perceive and interpret the circumstances in two
ways: information dependence and outcome
dependence. When one is not clear about defining the
situation, s/he is most likely dependent on others to
define the situation (informationdependence),
wherein s/he interprets the situation out of the
reactions of others. However, the decision to do
something about the unusual circumstances is also
being processed by the person, where he puts
importance on how others would evaluate him on
whether or not s/he decides to help (outcome
dependence).
Say for example when witnessing a man in a busy street
yelling out for help, you look at the man and at the
same time look around and the people around this man
yelling for help. You start observing what others do,
who have also heard the man yelling for help. You see
other people stopping and starring, others still moving
along, others moving away from the man. All these
observations are your information dependence. Then
you start to think about the situation, whether you
decide to help this man or not. But this decision will not
be very easy for you. At the back of your mind, you have
a lot going on – what is it that this man needs? What
help should be given? And many others things on your
mind that will also include what others moght think
about you if you do something for this man – that is
your outcome dependence.
3. DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY - collaterally
connected still with the bystander effect indicating that
the knowledge of the presence of others who might
help inhibits intervention in an emergency. Latané,
et.al.(1981) found roboust evidence of the effect of
perceived group size on helping. Studies showed that
in the bystander effect, when an individual believes
that there are other bystanders who can offer help,
pressure to rescue the victim is reduced.
The belief that the presence of other people in an
emergency situation makes one less personally
responsible to offer help concretely explains the
diffusion of responsibility.
E. EMOTIONAL PERSPECTIVE TO ALTTRUISM:
Extending the work on Bibb Latané and John Darley and
attempting to explain more on why people in a group
of bystanders often do not interpret and event as an
emergency and why help sometimes is not clearly
defined, Jane Piliavin and her collegues (1981) and
other social psychologists focused on Factors 3
(personal responsibility), 4(deciding what to do) and 5
(implementing action).
1. AROUSAL COST-REWARD MODEL According to this model, witnessing an emergency is
emotionally arousing and is generally experienced as
an uncomfortable tension which bystander seek to
decrease (Gaetner & Dovidio, 1977). Further, this
model proposed that witnessing the distress of another
or their suffering creates unpleasant empathic arousal
in the observer and thus the observer is motivated to
help (Hoffman, 1981).
In another way, reducing the uncomfortable
tension of witnessing a distress can also be done by
ignoring the danger signs and simply fleeing away from
the event. Whatever the bystander chooses will be a
result of their analysis of the costs and rewards for
helping and for not helping.
What could be the costs for helping? This could
involve time, energy, personal resources, financial
costs, health, or even life. It can also lead to self-blame
or experience of loss self-esteem or even social
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disapproval or embarrassment for ignoring or not
rendering assistance to the sufferer.
According to Piliavin, if the costs of helping are
low and the cost of not helping are high, then the
bystander is most likely to show altruistic action. On the
other hand, if both (helping and not helping) costs are
low, to show prosocial behavior depends on the
perceived social norm in the situation. However, if the
costs of helping and not helping are both high – this can
lead the bystander in a very challenging situation. In
this case, two (2) possible courses of action can
happen:
a) One is for the bystander to intervene indirectly –
either by calling for police, an ambulance or other
professional helping source.
b) Another is for the bystander to refine the situation
in a way that results in them not helping – either that
they have assessed that there is no emergency at all in
the situation or that there are other people who can
help instead or that the victim deserves to suffer,
hence, help is not provided.
2. AROUSAL-REDUCTION and NEGATIVE STATE
RELIEF MODEL almost similar to arousal cost-reward
model. This model argues that altruism is motivated by
reduction in aversive arousal or tension. When an
observer witnesses another’s suffering this cause
negative feelings and helping then minimizes the
negative feelings. Such occurs when one experiences
guilt in response to another’s suffering – this can be a
powerful motivator for altruistic acts. Feelings of guilt
endangers self-esteem and helping behaviors enables
self-image reparation (Feigin, et.al. 2014)
3. EMPATHY involves feeling of sympathy and a
desire to relieve another’s suffering is dependent on
the observer’s developmental stage. Children’s
development of empathy is a highlight to their
emotional growth and they eventually become aware
of others and understand environmental cues to
experience and express empathy.
4. MOODS AND HELPING. Research also
demonstrates that people’s willingness to help is
affected by the mood they happen to be in when
assistance is needed.
In general, positive moods have a prosocial effect.
People are more likely to help others when they in a
good mood (Cunningham, 1979; Isen & Levin, 1972;
Wilson, 1981). The correlation between good mood
and altruistic tendencies has several implications:
☺ when one is in a positive mood, s/he is more likely
to perceive other people as nice, honest or decent and
thus deserving of help (Forgas & Bower, 1987; Isen,
1987)
☺ another possibility is that happy people help others
in order to prolong their good mood (Williamson &
Clark, 1982)
☺ happy people are less likely to be self-absorbed in
their own thoughts and hence are more attentive to
other’s needs (McMillen, Sander and Solomon, 1977)
☺ good mood increases the likelihood that people
think about the rewarding nature of social activities,
whereby helpfulness expected to provide in return
positive stimuli.
But how about negative moods? Isen and collegues
(1973) found that when people believed they have
failed, they were more likely to help another person as
well. A possible link to this is the rewarding properties
of helping. Because helping others often increases
good mood, people in bad mood might help in order to
escape a bad mood. Robert Cialdini and Douglas
Kenrick (1976) proposed that when people are in a bad
mood and yet decides to help another is based on a
simple self-serving question – will helping make me feel
better?
WHOM DO WE HELP
A. PERCEIVED SIMILAR OTHERS - Because similarity
influences interpersonal attraction, it is conducive to
liking and liking is conducive to helping (Myers, 2010).
Miller and colleagues (2001) noted that we are more
empathic and helpful toward those similar us.
Perceiving a needy person as similar to us increases our
willingness to lend assistance.
In a social experiment done in London and actor posed
himself as somebody who needed help. He was simply
dressed in rugged overalls and a pair of jeans laid
himself on the ground pressing his abdomen and asking
for people passing by for help. For twenty minutes,
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people simply passed by him. Others not even having
to take a look at him. Then, in an hour left to change his
clothes. This time wearing a suit and tie with polished
leather shoes. Still in the same busy area, he posted as
someone who seemed to have passed out and fallen on
the ground and in no time, within six minutes, a young
lady dressed in office attire and a gentleman also in his
suit and coat, called him “sir” and asked if he was okay
and what has just happened to him.
This experiment seem to clearly show that when one
identifies along with another as needing assistance, it
is more likely that help is offered. Lisa DeBruine (2002)
quotes “no face is more familiar than one’s own.”
Burger and colleagues (2004) also noted that even just
sharing a birthday, a first name leads people to respond
more to a request for help. This can probably explain
why, when one is in another country and see a fellow
needing help and is seemingly looking like him (say
Asian-looking or Hispanic-looking), he is more likely to
give that person some assistance.
B. GENDER CONSIDERATIONS IN HELPING - Alice Eagly
and Maureen Crowley (1986) reported that when faced
with potentially dangerous situations in which
strangers need help, men are more likely to help. In
safer situations, women are slightly more likely to help.
George and colleagues presented that among women,
they respond with greater empathy and spare more
time to help a friend, that is, women are more likely
than men to provide emotional support to others
(Shumaker and Hill, 1991).
These findings show that their gender differences
interact depending on the situation. Myers (2010) in his
book Social Psychology also noted a report during the
tragic sinking of the Titanic. When it sank, it was found
that 70% of the females and 20% of the males on board
survived. Thanks to gender norms, most of those who
were helped were women than men. This shows that
male helpers were perfectly in accord with the male
gender role, which nurtures helping as a heroic and
chivalrous act that is generally directed toward the
benefit of female victims. However, this finding seem
to clearly present men as offering help in an egoistic
manner.
accidents, calamities, health crisis such as the
coronavirus.
The reason to why people help “deserving” others is
true to the principle of social justice. One of the
unfortunate consequences of believing in a just world
is that people tend to make defensive attributions
when explaining plight of victims and indicates that
people are prone to blame the sufferer for their
distresses and misfortunes.
Does TRUE ALTRUISM exist? The emotional
perspective of altruism, according to social
psychologists, assume an egoistic motive underlying
prosocial behavior.
EMPATHY-ALTRUISM HYPOTHESIS - Daniel Batson
(1987, 1991), Hoffman (1981) and others (Karylowski,
1984; Kreb, 1975) argued that sometimes people’s
intention to help are truly altruistic.
Batson, mentioned by Feigin, et al (2014) separates the
dominant egoistic motivation for helping. In this
hypothesis, Batson characterizes six (6) empirically
testable psychological process:
1.a) perception of another’s need is a function of
several factors including a perceptible discrepancy
between the current and potential state of wellbeing.
The perception of the other’s need leads to empathic
emotion.
1.b) adoption of the other’s perspective and a
perspective-taking set
1.c) attachment that contributes to the experience of
empathy
1.d) arousal of empathy due to empathy where the
level of attachment affects the likelihood of
perspective-taking and the strength of attachment that
affects the magnitude of empathic emotions
1.e) the experience of personal empathy is
characterized by sympathy and compassion and evokes
altruistic motivation
1.f) relative benefit analysis performed by the observer
with the intention of determining the most effective
behavior possible to address the needs of the other.
C. HELPING DESERVING OTHERS - This is dependent on
inferences made about the cause of people’s distress.
Following the principle of attribution theory, social
psychologist posits that we are more likely to help
someone if we attribute the cause of their problems to
external or uncontrollable circumstance. Ex. Car
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